The Villainess is on a Quest - Chapter 39

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 39
At last Cled’s turn arrived. He asked everyone present to leave the room.
Uncertain what he and Aine might discuss, Mane wanted to stay, but when Aine gestured that it was fine, she reluctantly followed Emilia outside.
Alone now, Aine asked him what he wished to say.
“I must apologize to you. Your Highness.”
“Please, rise from your knees.”
“I swore to protect you. Yet I never imagined such a tragedy would unfold within my own home.”
Cled had knelt. Aine wished for him to stand, but he remained on his knees.
He had promised to guard her, and yet this catastrophe had struck immediately.
Cled had no face to show Aine and braced himself for whatever words she might speak.
But Aine crawled from the bed and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“I was able to survive only because you appeared when you did.”
“Your Highness.”
“I don’t want to see you grieve like this on my account.”
How could she not blame herself? By all rights she should rage and harbor resentment, yet Aine accepted this situation with the equanimity of someone who had transcended the world’s pain.
“The ones who did this were wrong—not you. I’ve always known you give your best for my sake.”
It was not he who was at fault. Those who committed the crime bore the guilt. With this thought, she patted his back as she spoke.
“And from now on, you needn’t call me by title. You may call me Aine. After all, you are the one who saved my life.”
The words “saved my life” cut deep in Cled’s chest. Though she spoke with gratitude, he could not forget that moment.
The moment when someone had nearly brought Aine to death. A blade had lain within reach. Had his opponent chosen the sword instead of strangulation, it would have ended in an instant.
In a situation where he could only call it sheer fortune, Cled renewed his resolve with fierce determination.
‘I will stand by your side so that you never come to harm again.’
If anyone dared to bruise even a single finger of hers while they were together, he would show no mercy.
“But my body feels so heavy. Why is that?”
Cled looked at Aine lying on the floor.
“Listen carefully, and don’t be alarmed. Aine.”
There were still matters he had not yet told her.
“You have been asleep for a week.”
“What?”
The moment Aine heard the word “week,” her expression hardened.
It was the look of someone questioning how such a brief sleep could have stretched across seven days.
But Cled’s expression was graver than ever before.
“There is one more thing I must tell you.”
And there was more to come.
“He has awakened.”
“Awakened?”
Before she could even ask who, Cled spoke.
“Prince Wilhelm has finally awakened.”
Wilhelm had at last fully escaped the Eternal Nightmare.
* * *
At Cled’s strong request, the banquet was effectively postponed indefinitely.
It was given out that his condition was too poor to attend.
To postpone an imperial banquet was unprecedented, but since it could be attributed to Cled’s poor health, it was not without merit.
And truly, with Aine in a state of unconsciousness, there was no question of attending the banquet anyway.
“Is he dead?”
The mysterious assailant from Retaria who had set foot in Chesher Mansion with murderous intent.
Aine was curious about what had become of him.
Cled hesitated at first, but realizing that Aine too had the right to know, he answered.
“I wanted to tear him to pieces on the spot, but in order to obtain concrete evidence and gather intelligence on Retaria, I chose to take him alive.”
Retaria openly paraded its power, yet its internal structure remained a mystery.
They didn’t even know who currently held the position of Retaria’s leader.
For Aine’s sake, he intended to torture the man thoroughly and extract everything—including Retaria’s ultimate purpose.
“But an unexpected complication arose.”
“A complication?”
Cled’s teeth ground together whenever he recalled what happened that day.
The Imperial Palace housed many experts renowned in the Psychic Arts.
After transporting him to the palace and confining him to the Underground Dungeon with all access restricted, they had completed every procedure to ensure the nobility couldn’t object.
All that remained was to begin extracting information in earnest, but unfortunately, a problem emerged.
“He had poison hidden in his molars.”
“Terrifyingly thorough, isn’t it.”
He’d bitten down on his back teeth to rupture the poison capsule hidden inside, silencing himself before he could speak.
But that wasn’t the only problem.
“Someone broke into the Underground Dungeon,” the report came.
An intruder had forced their way in and left traces deliberately—there was no question of accident here. The marks were far too deliberate.
Because they’d been carved into the dead man’s abdomen: a chilling message that read, “Found you.”
“First, we’ll need to identify the man,” Cled said.
Despite hearing all of this, Aine responded with unsettling calm. Cled found it incomprehensible. This was clearly connected to her—it had to be.
From this incident alone, she must have grasped what they were after. Yet she was treating it as though it were someone else’s affair entirely.
‘Is she still in shock?’
It occurred to him that after so long asleep, she might be in a daze, her mind not yet fully her own.
As Cled resolved to be even more attentive, Aine finally spoke.
“Has His Highness come to his senses?”
It was the question that mattered most to her. After all, everything she’d done since arriving in the Empire had been for Wilhelm’s sake.
She was consumed with curiosity—whether Wilhelm had any complications upon waking, what he was doing now, all of it.
Anticipating her question, Cled found himself unable to answer directly as he had before. Instead, he extended his hand.
When Aine questioned his meaning with her eyes, he replied:
“I think seeing him yourself will be faster than explaining.”
The situation was complicated enough that words might not suffice. Aine gazed at his outstretched hand.
“I’m not a child.”
“If you were, I’d have carried you.”
Though she could stand on her own two feet now, he didn’t want her to worry needlessly—and besides, he wanted to feel that warmth once more.
That same gentleness he’d felt before.
* * *
With Cled’s steady support and without pushing herself, Aine reached Wilhelm’s chamber without difficulty.
The spacious bedroom held only the soft, steady breathing of the sleeping child.
Aine’s heart was racing violently. Wilhelm was finally freed from the Eternal Nightmare.
Now she could breathe easy knowing he was no longer in danger of death.
Yet Cled’s insistence on showing her directly kept nagging at her mind.
“He’s still sleeping—perhaps I should come back later.”
With no intention of forcibly waking the peacefully sleeping child, Aine decided to return once Wilhelm awoke on his own.
“Mm… huh?”
Though she’d spoken softly, Wilhelm stirred, rubbing his eyes as he rose from the bed.
As Aine watched the boy slowly sit up, her body went rigid.
How was she to explain this to him?
‘I came to the Empire to save you.’
Would those words even make sense? She’d always thought that when he recovered, there would come a moment for explanations—but she’d never imagined it would be now.
As she hesitated over what to say first—
“Mother?”
Aine’s ears doubted what they’d heard. Mother? There were only three people in this chamber.
It couldn’t have been Cled, and his voice was unmistakably different.
So the one who’d spoken that word… Aine turned to Wilhelm. The boy’s eyes were clear and alert, and he smiled brightly at her.
“Mother. Why did you take so long to come?”
He was calling her mother.
“Aine? Listen! Stay with me! Aine!”
* * *
“What is the meaning of this?”
At Cled’s summons, Imperial physicians had converged on the Chesher Mansion.
They’d known Wilhelm had awakened, but when he’d spoken nothing for days, all had assumed he’d developed Mutism.
“It appears to be Amnesia instead.”
“Is it an aftereffect of the Eternal Nightmare?”
“It seems we must assume it is. Our knowledge of all the Eternal Nightmare’s aftereffects remains incomplete, given how little information we possess.”
But Wilhelm’s affliction was not Mutism—it was Amnesia. And a peculiar kind at that.
“He calls me his mother.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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